The Book of Eli, the newest movie from ghetto (filmmaking) celebrities the Hughes Brothers, is better than any January film has any right to be. As you are probably well aware, January is generally understood as a cinematic graveyard, a time during which all films theatrically released are expected to die short, unpleasant deaths. This is due to the fact that Oscar gambits come to a close at the beginning of the New Year – any film released after December 31st won’t be considered for the previous year’s Academy Awards. Hence, though Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones wasn’t released nationally until January 15th, it played in Los Angeles and New York starting in mid-December, so that it could hopefully garner the desirable Oscar nod. Those films that are released theatrically on a national scale during January are expected to be entirely off the cultural and Academy radar by the time the next round of nominations are picked.Continue reading →